Docker update speeds and organizes container deployments

With updates for both the core Docker engine and its registry software, Docker has endeavored to make its popular software container technology faster to deploy and easier to manage.

Docker Engine 1.6 and the Docker Registry 2.0, both released Thursday, work together to simplify the process of managing Docker containers, according to the company.

Taken together, the technologies will form the foundation for running and managing Docker containers for years to come, Docker asserted in a blog post.

Docker rewrote the Registry from scratch, using Google's Go programming language. Going forward, the Registry will serve as a central server for storing and delivering Docker containers. Like the Docker Engine itself, the Docker Registry is open source. Docker, the company, uses it as the core for its Docker Hub public service.

Addressing some security concerns, the Registry now uses the TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol to encrypt containers between the repository and the end user. The software also provides a notification system, Webhooks, that can let administrators or external workflow engines know whenever someone downloads an image.

Docker containers provide a way to package an application along with its dependent libraries so it can be easily and quickly run on any Linux platform. Containers are valuable for organizations in that they cleanly separate the application from the underlying infrastructure.

Launched in 2013, Docker's popularity continues to grow at a rapid pace, as developers and organizations use it as a portable environment for running applications. The Docker Hub, an online repository for third-party Docker images has provided more 300 million containers to developers, and will soon be deliver 100 million more a month, the company estimated. Docker containers are now supported by all the major cloud providers, including Microsoft Azure, IBM, the Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services.

Earlier this week, Docker also announced that it had received $95 million funding from a number of investment companies.

"The fact that a company building technology on open source can get so much funding is shows that we are truly entering the golden age of open source as the foundation of building new business value," wrote IDC software analyst Al Hilwa, in an e-mail sent to journalists.

"Docker has a lot of opportunities, and it is an important question to ponder how they plan to invest going forward. I believe acquisitions of technology is a key piece of the investment strategy to accelerate time to market," he wrote.

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